I have always enjoyed traveling and visiting new places. Reading and maps have been a relatively inexpensive way for me to travel and learn about places when I could not actually be traveling. Place names have always fascinated me, in large part because of my love for language.
Strange place names. That is a huge topic, and one that is open to interpretation. It could range from a list of things I find personally amusing and unusual as the name of a place, like Truth or Consequences (New Mexico), Ajo (Spanish for garlic) and Nogales (Spanish for walnuts) (Arizona) to Moose Jaw (Saskatchewan-an unusual name, too-, Canada) and Turkeyfoot and Bird in Hand (Pennsylvania), to some place names that just strike my as being puzzling, like Eighty-Four (Pennsylvania), Big Stick (West Virginia) and Riddle (Alabama).
There are lists of place names in the USA and other countries that have been assembled to fit various themes, like TV shows (Bonanza Arkansas), plants (Oak Tree Village, California), animals (Bald Eagle, Maryland), colors (Brown Hill, Georgia), famous people (Glen Campbell, PA), named for other cities (London, Ontario-London England), names of countries or states(California in Pennsylvania and Poland in Maine), verbs (Talking Leaves, Virginia), nouns (Factory Village, New York), and any other number of topics, including numbers (Twentysix, Kentucky).
I think my own personal favorite of place names is that for otherworldly names in the USA. Here is my short list of populated places:
Galaxy Acres (Ohio) and Galaxy Heights (Tennessee).
Star (in 13 different states, including Idaho and Michigan) and Starlight (North Carolina and Pennsylvania)
Mercury (Alabama, Nevada and Texas)
Saturn (Indiana and Texas)
Neptune (Iowa, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin)
Pluto (Mississippi, Texas and West Virginia)
Moon (Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Virginia and Wisconsin)
Apollo (Pennsylvania and California)
The planet Uranus does not have any namesakes in the USA. And I kept the list fairly simple, not using (except in the galaxy and star names) names like Jupiter Beach or Apollo Shores.
Ceres (an asteroid) (in 8 states, including Iowa, Oklahoma and Washington)
Jupiter (California, Florida and North Carolina)
Venus (in 9 states, including Missouri and Nebraska)
Earth (Texas)
Mars (Pennsylvania, California and Texas)
So, the next time you look up at the night sky, take note that what you see in outer space more than likely has a namesake right here on planet Earth. Do aliens exist? That is a good question. But judging by the evidence of the place names here, there is evidence that there may really be aliens among us. Or at least it is amusing to think so. Roswell may be closer than we think.
